1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication device, a network parameter setting method and a network parameter setting program product. More particularly, the present invention relates to a communication device suitable for setting an IP address of a server connected to a network, a network parameter setting method and a network parameter setting program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there have been developed copying apparatuses equipped with E-mail sending/receiving functions and file transfer functions. These copying apparatuses are connected to local area networks (LAN) for use. In connecting a copying machine to a network, the setting of network environment must be performed. The setting of network environment means, in addition to assigning an IP address to the copying machine to be connected to the network, registering an IP address of a SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for sending E-mails in order to make the E-mail sending function effective.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-274806 discloses an information processing device which facilitates the operation for assigning an IP address to a copying machine to be connected to a network. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-274806 discloses an information processing device including a packet capturing portion for acquiring packets from a network 200, a packet analysis unit for extracting network parameters from the acquired packets, a storage unit for constructing and storing an input-supporting data base containing usage information regarding the usage of the extracted network parameters in the network, and a control panel for creating and displaying a user interface image plane for setting network parameters in the information processing device 10 based on the aforementioned usage information contained in the input-supporting data base.
The information processing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-274806 can facilitate the operation for registering an IP address assigned to the information processing device. However, the registration thereof can not be performed when the IP address of a server connected to the network, for example, a SMTP server, is unknown.